Poeta Doctus

In part because it’s American Thanksgiving and in part as preface to my launching a new chapbook this Sunday, I post here a sequence of faux haikus originally shared over a number of days on my Facebook author’s page in 2016 that each mark (or, more philosophically, “trace”) a moment or spot-in-time of gratitude.

 

Thanks

 

Walk to work over Park Mont

Royale:  birdsong &

melt burble in stereo.

 

#

 

Ekphrastic “tiny heroes

hunting flying grass-

hair butts” from an ex-student.

 

Facebook messenger giggle

threads nearly daily

with ex-student writer friend.

 

#

 

Not my fault but likely got

a student expelled

& yet I still feel regret.

 

Is it the Waldmeister garb?

Everyone asks me

directions on the Mountain!

 

Suffocating poetry

festival panel:

Happy, two friends to sit with.

 

#

 

An invitation to watch

a friend’s family eat

chicken, vegetables for all.

 

“He thinks everything he says

is a pearl”—a brown

pearl, a soft brown oblong pearl.

 

[This gratitude haiku is

in breach of Facebook’s

Terms and Conditions of Use]

 

#

 

A session on the Holy

Mountain, the Living

Room, Eichendorff Anlage.

 

The Extending the Table

cookbook my sister

gave us years back used daily.

 

Everything for tomorrow’s

Basic Raw Vegan

Protein Overnight Oats on hand.

 

#

 

A damp, cool, April Monday

morning; walk signal

turns as I step to the curb;

green buds heart high on

pussy willow; chickadee

trio met on Mont

Royale for palmseed breakfast;

lithe black Lab mongrel

mindless joy hunting squirrel,

redpink tongue aflap;

retiree, I imagine,

crouches down before

March End Prill, camera balanced

to film the melt stream.

 

#

 

Feeding the Mountain

chickadees again this time

four & lower down.

 

Fritz Lang on meeting Goebbels

& high-tailing it

out of Germany on YouTube.

 

Realizing a friend’s “today’s good”

status updates are

his own gratitude haikus.

 

#

 

Rainer in Heidelberg e-

mails me RE: a fish

& crow for a new haiku.

 

I’m here! Chickadees call; in

among roots, under

a bench two tiny Chipping

Sparrows; standing still

roadside a Mallard I could

look in her black eye;

white underwing then bark grey

back of a Cooper’s

Hawk pair; trunks and branches arch

a hall for birdsong;

quack honk pair call overhead

two Canada Geese.

 

#

 

Haematite & red

jasper pendant stones gifted

from friends worn daily.

 

#

 

Overhead overheard a

sparrow hen’s sighing

invitation to her cock.

 

Searching for chickadees I

spot a hawk broad wings

spread glide in two slow circles.

 

The gratitude haiku I

could write every day

about my Bedrock of Love.

 

#

 

More to be grateful

for today than seventeen

syllables can say.

 

#

 

Kisses waking me

three times last night after three

days cities apart.

 

Discussing poems

& coming to understand

some matters are style.

 

#

 

One martini to

dissolve pedagogical

moronicity.

 

#

 

Sunday morning sun warms rain

wet pavement; German

summers rise to memory.

 

#

 

Sitting myself free

from an intoxicating

toxic old mentor.

 

Getting progressives

have fought so much against they

forget what they’re for.

 

That uncanny first

green of grass & full foliage;

May in Montreal.

 

#

 

Scholarly duties

discharged—time to write & read

& think—poetry!

 

Morning walk to school;

chance meeting with Adrian,

gentle bookseller.

 

#

 

Distant Keel scholar

friend reads my latest poems:

“More soon! Herzlich, d.”

 

Brunette shoulder-length

mop, fair-face toddler; behind-

soother grin, “Bonjour!”

 

#

 

Doktor Pfeiler asks to read

“Bochum” at the Ruhr

Uni Anniversary.

 

#

 

France outlaws food waste;

Neckar gulls rise & circle

Hölderlin’s tower.

 

[Dear friend, the pseudo

haiku means thanks for the news

& Celan’s poem!]

 

I read hash high mice

horny but too stoned to climb on

yawn then lick themselves.

 

#

 

Tropical muggy

Montreal summer monsoons

cooling afternoons.

 

#

 

Despite knowing better grave

nostalgia wins out;

music of my youth.

 

#

 

Day after I’m told

chemo’s on the horizon

Archer season six.

 

#

 

The chick says Feed me!

The cock says Fuck me! The hen

says Leave me alone!

 

Message with Georg

about how The Walking Dead

is a great Western.

 

Every day Petra’s

home not teaching I ambush

and stroke her soft skin.

 

#

 

The naturopath

asks if I was an athlete

in my younger days.

 

#

 

The inanities

of my fellow travellers

to Toronto end.

 

Cloudless skies warmer

than forecast; little Grey Goose;

yellow fields like home.

 

The wisdom of George

mindful of his feet; Uncle

Andrew’s belly breaths.

 

#

 

A baker’s dozen

sparrows flutter dust bath tubs

in reno dirtsand.

 

#

 

Three hot tropical

I imagine days; frozen

red grapes to snack on.

 

#

 

Rigpa, Amor, learning, Poesie:  what more do I need in my life?

 

#

 

What I have to say to you friends needs more than a haiku’s syllables

 

#

 

Couchlock or sitting full lotus, meditation bench, or straightbacked chair

 

#

 

Empty the cache, re

boot, meditate, and get back

down to the real work